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| Me and my sweet girl at flyball practice. |
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| Gryphon waits his turn at flyball practice. |
I got involved in flyball about 5 years ago when Piper and I attended a flyball workshop in Sanford,
NC. Piper seemed to be a natural, with her love of tennis balls and running at top speed so I decided to pursue
it further. Flyball does take quite a bit of training - they have to learn to go over the hurdles, turn correctly on
the box for maximum speed and safety (referred to as a "swimmer's turn"), bring the ball back and NOT run after the other
dogs! Some dogs take to it right away and some dogs need a little extra work. I thought Piper would never
get the hang of it, but one day, it just clicked and she's been running beautifully ever since. The cool thing
about flyball is that ANY dog can participate, regardless of size, breed or gender...even mixed breeds can run. And
contrary to popular opinion, your dog does not have to be "ball crazy" to be a great flyball dog. The height of the hurdles the dogs jump over is determined by the shoulder height of the smallest dog on the team.
Therefore, you'll usually see a team consisting of 3 larger dogs and one smaller dog, often a Jack Russell Terrier.
Piper and I now run with Go Dog Go!, a club out of RTP, NC. We joined them about a year ago. GDG is a great group of people of different
ages and walks of life, but we all seem to get along pretty well. I really enjoy being with my club members at a weekend tournament,
hanging out, having fun, laughing and just generally having a great time. Oh...and occasionally we race our
dogs. The best thing about our team is that we don't necessarily run to win. We run for the fun of running and,
of course, to earn the points necessary to put titles on our dogs. It's great when we do win (or even just place!),
but we don't put so much pressure on ourselves that we forget the real reason we're there - to have fun with our dogs.
For more information about flyball and to find a club near you, go to the North American Flyball Association (NAFA) website
- www.flyball.org. By the way, Piper's picture is on the NAFA website on the page regarding the different regions (third
from the top) - http://flyball.org/regions.html.
Gryphon does enjoy flyball as well and has a wonderful swimmer's turn off the flyball box, but because he
is highly distracted right now with all the other dogs around him, he's taking a break from flyball to concentrate on agility.
Once his adolescence is over and he hopefully calms down a bit, I'm hoping to get him back into it. But for now, he's
enjoying agility.
Cadence began running flyball in 2007 and just loves it. His main problem is that he loves getting
the ball but once that's over, he has less motivation to return to me. He does love racing the dog in the other lane
and you'll often see him looking over in the other lane to see where the other dog is.
Occasionally there are flyball tournaments at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, held in the Holshouser
Building (Gate 2 off Trininty Rd). Spectators are always welcome (though you may want to leave your own dog at home
so you can enjoy the show). Bring earplugs!!! Fifty barking dogs in an enclosed space creates a lot of noise!
See below for upcoming tournaments. Racing goes all day Saturday and Sunday, starting at 8am each day and
going until racing is done (usually around 4-5pm). Even if you're not interested in getting involved with flyball, it's
just plain fun to watch!
WHERE CAN YOU FIND GO DOG GO!?
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